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Academic Commons Search Resultsen-usThe theory of the state: An economic perspectivehttp://academiccommons.columbia.edu/catalog/ac:116195
Findlay, Ronald E.; Wellisz, Stanislaw H.http://hdl.handle.net/10022/AC:P:503Thu, 24 Mar 2011 00:00:00 +0000The principle of laissez-faire, so closely associated with Adam Smith and the classical economists, should certainly not be considered an endorsement of anarchy as the ideal form of social order. Despite the theological overtones of divine providence in the imagery of the "invisible hand", Smith and his followers did not regard the market and the price mechanism as a spontaneous form of natural order that would prevail in any social group. Political organization in some form is necessary to provide the framework of law and order within which justice could be maintained and contracts enforced. Thus even one of their harshest critics, Thomas Carlyle, described their system not as anarchy, but as "anarchy plus the constable". The necessity of the "state" in the sense of the institution that claims a monopoly of the legitimate use of force over a given territory, or as Max Weber (1964, p. 154) defined it, for the proper functioning of "the market" and indeed of all forms of civilized human endeavor, can be traced back to the seminal influence of The Leviathan, the foundation of modern political thought laid by Thomas Hobbes (1651).Economic history, Political scienceref2, sw11Economics, International and Public AffairsWorking papersTowards a factor proportions approach to economic history: Population, precious metals and prices from the Black Death to the price revolutionhttp://academiccommons.columbia.edu/catalog/ac:113572
Findlay, Ronald E.; Lundahl, Matshttp://hdl.handle.net/10022/AC:P:392Tue, 22 Mar 2011 00:00:00 +0000In the history of economic doctrine the name of Bertil Ohlin is inseparable from that of Eli Heckscher. The origin of the famous Heckscher-Ohlin theorem is the seminal article by Heckscher (1919) in the special 1919 David Davidson Festschrift issue of Ekonomisk Tidskrift, later developed by Ohlin in his doctoral dissertation (1924) and his monumental Interregional and International Trade (1933). Together, these three works established the factor proportions approach to international trade.Economic historyref2EconomicsWorking papersGlobalization and the European economy: Medieval origins to the Industrial Revolutionhttp://academiccommons.columbia.edu/catalog/ac:113595
Findlay, Ronald E.http://hdl.handle.net/10022/AC:P:393Tue, 22 Mar 2011 00:00:00 +0000Any consideration of "The Europeanization of the Globe and the Globalization of Europe" must confront the problem of how to specify the spatio-temporal coordinates of the concept of Europe. When does "Europe" begin as a meaningful cultural, social and political expression and how far east from the shores of the Atlantic and the North Sea does it extend? In this paper I will begin with Charlemagne, which is to say around 800. It is at about this time that that the designations of Europe and European first begin to be used. Denys Hay (1966:25) cites an eighth-century Spanish chronicler who refers to the forces of Charles Martel, Charlemagne's grandfather, at the celebrated Battle of Poitiers in 732 as Europeenses or Europeans, rather than as Christians, and their opponents as Arabs, rather than as Muslims, a nice example of ethnic as opposed to religious identification of "ourselves" and "the other." In terms of space I will go not too much further east than the limits of the Carolingian Empire at its peak, which is conveniently depicted in the map provided by Jacques Boussard (1976:40-41). In this map it is remarkable to see how closely the empire coincides with the area covered by the "Inner Six" of the European Common Market, with the addition of Austria and Hungary. To the west the Iberian Peninsula was largely under Muslim control, with the British Isles under the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms and their "Celtic Fringe". Scandinavia in the north was still pagan as was Germany east of the Elbe, while southern Italy was largely under Byzantine or Muslim rule. Thus for the purposes of this paper I shall take "Europe" to be the sum of all these territories i.e. what is conventionally regarded today as Western Europe. This is purely for analytical convenience and should not be taken to imply any sinister desire to exclude peoples and nations further to the east on historical and cultural grounds from belonging to Europe. The paper will concentrate on Europe's contacts and trading relations with other parts of the world and their reciprocal impacts upon each other, in keeping with the themes of "Europeanization" and "Globalization". As the reader of this volume will note I will be using the latter term much more broadly and loosely, in the spirit of Humpty Dumpty, than David Sylvan would like us to do in his contribution. Concentrating on the external relations of this entity "Europe" with other economic and cultural units does not imply that I regard purely internal developments as necessarily any less significant in the overall evolution of the European economy.Economic history, Medieval historyref2EconomicsWorking papersThe Emergence of the World Economy: Towards a Historical Perspective, 1000-1750http://academiccommons.columbia.edu/catalog/ac:100264
Findlay, Ronald E.http://hdl.handle.net/10022/AC:P:15662Wed, 02 Mar 2011 00:00:00 +0000This paper presents a historical perspective on the emergence of the world economy from 1000-1750 A.D., in the spirit of F. Mauro's (1961) "intercontinental model." Mauro envisaged a generalized inter-regional input-output table, with five continents as the regions. World economic history could thus be conceived as the task of filling up these cells with the corresponding flows of exports, imports and movements of factors and precious metals between them and charting their evolution over time. The level of aggregation for the flows in question would of course depend on data availability and analytical tractability. While analysis and interpretation of what makes the flows change over time and what explains their structure at any given moment would depend on one's theoretical presumptions, and hence be a matter of controversy, one would at least hope for agreement on assembling the information itself, though much guesswork and estimation would have to be involved, particularly of earlier centuries. While I cannot even begin to initiate such an approach in the present paper, my subsequent observations will be in the spirit of striving towards it as a goal. At the very least such an approach would force us to think about simultaneity and interdependence in the world economy and not fall victim to the parochialism of space and time as we are prone to do from the various "national" standpoints, which is the usual perspective in economic history.Economic historyref2EconomicsWorking papers